U2

U2 are an Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1976. The group comprises Bono (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), the Edge (lead guitar, keyboards, and backing vocals), Adam Clayton (bass guitar), and Larry Mullen Jr. (drums and percussion). Rooted in post-punk, U2's musical style has evolved throughout their career, yet has maintained an anthemic quality built on Bono's expressive vocals and the Edge's chiming, effects-based guitar sounds. Bono's lyrics, often embellished with spiritual imagery, focus on personal and sociopolitical themes. The group's popular live performances have ranged across multiple elaborate tours over their career.

The band was formed when the members were teenaged pupils of Mount Temple Comprehensive School and had limited musical proficiency. Within four years, they signed with Island Records and released their debut album, Boy (1980). Works such as their first UK number-one album, War (1983), and singles "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" helped establish U2's reputation as a politically and socially conscious group. Their fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire (1984), was their first collaboration with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, whose influence resulted in a more abstract, ambient sound for the band. By the mid-1980s, U2 had become renowned globally for their live act, highlighted by their performance at Live Aid in 1985. Their fifth album, The Joshua Tree (1987), made them international stars and was their greatest critical and commercial success. One of the world's best-selling albums with 25 million copies sold, it yielded the group's only number-one singles in the US: "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".

Facing creative stagnation and a backlash to their documentary and double album Rattle and Hum (1988), U2 reinvented themselves in the 1990s. Beginning with their acclaimed seventh album, Achtung Baby (1991), and the multimedia spectacle of the Zoo TV Tour, the band pursued a new musical direction influenced by alternative, industrial, and electronic dance music, and they embraced a more ironic, flippant image. This experimentation continued on Zooropa (1993) and concluded after Pop (1997) and the PopMart Tour, which polarized audiences and critics. The group re-established a more conventional, mainstream sound on All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000) and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004), which were critical and commercial successes. Sales of subsequent albums declined, but the group remained a popular live act. The U2 360° Tour of 2009–2011 held records for the most-attended and highest-grossing concert tour until 2019. Songs of Innocence (2014), the first of two companion albums in the 2010s, was criticised for its pervasive release through the iTunes Store. In 2023, U2 released Songs of Surrender, an album of re-recorded songs, and began the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live concert residency to inaugurate Sphere in the Las Vegas Valley.

U2 have released 15 studio albums and are one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold an estimated 150–170 million records worldwide. Their accolades include 22 Grammy Awards, eight Brit Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. They were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. According to Pollstar, they were the second-highest-grossing live music artist from 1980 to 2022, earning US$2.13 billion. Rolling Stone ranked U2 at number 22 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Throughout their career, as a band and as individuals, they have campaigned for human rights and social justice causes, working with organisations and coalitions that include Amnesty International, Jubilee 2000, DATA/the ONE Campaign, Product Red, War Child, and Music Rising.

In 1976, Larry Mullen Jr., then a 14-year-old pupil of Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, Ireland, posted a note on the school's notice board in search of musicians for a new band. For the first practice, which was held on 25 September in Mullen's kitchen, Mullen played drums and was joined by at least five other people: Paul Hewson ("Bono Vox") on lead vocals; David Evans ("the Edge") and his older brother Dik Evans on guitar; Adam Clayton, a friend of the Evans brothers, on bass guitar; and Ivan McCormick. Mullen later described it as "'The Larry Mullen Band' for about ten minutes, then Bono walked in and blew any chance I had of being in charge." Peter Martin, a friend of Mullen and McCormick, loaned his guitar and amplifier for the first practice, but he could not play and was quickly phased out; sources differ on whether he was in attendance at the first meeting or not. Within a few weeks, McCormick was also dropped from the group. The remaining five members settled on the name "Feedback" for the group because it was one of the few technical terms they knew. Early rehearsals took place in their music teacher's classroom at Mount Temple. Most of their initial material consisted of cover songs, which they admitted was not their forte. The emergence of punk rock, in particular the influence of acts such as the Stranglers, the Jam, the Clash, Buzzcocks, and Sex Pistols, convinced them that musical proficiency was not a prerequisite to success.

In April 1977, Feedback played their first gig for a paying audience at St. Fintan's High School. Shortly thereafter, the band changed their name to "The Hype". Dik Evans, who was older and by that time attending college, was becoming the odd man out of the group. The other members were leaning towards the idea of a four-piece ensemble. In March 1978, the group changed their name to "U2", selecting it from a list of six options suggested by Steve Averill, a punk rock musician with the Radiators from Space and a family friend of Clayton. The band chose U2 for its open-ended interpretations, visual strength on posters, and because it was the name that they disliked the least. Dik Evans officially left the band with a farewell concert at the Presbyterian Hall in Sutton on 4 March. During the show, which featured the group playing cover songs as the Hype, Dik ceremonially walked offstage. The remaining four members returned later in the concert to play original material as U2. Dik joined the Virgin Prunes, a band made up of mutual friends of U2; early on, the Prunes served as U2's default opening act, and the two groups often shared members for live performances to fill in for occasional absences. On 18 March, the four-piece U2 won the "Pop Group '78" talent contest sponsored by the Evening Press and Guinness's Harp Lager as part of Limerick Civic Week. The win was an important milestone and affirmation for the fledgling act. The contest prize consisted of £500 (equivalent to £3,623 in 2023) and a recording session for a demo that would be heard by the record label CBS Ireland. U2's demo tape was recorded at Keystone Studios in Dublin in April 1978, but the results were largely unsuccessful due to their inexperience.

Irish magazine Hot Press was influential in shaping U2's future; in addition to being one of their earliest allies, the publication's journalist Bill Graham introduced the band to Paul McGuinness, who agreed to be their manager in mid-1978. With the connections he was making within the music industry, McGuinness booked demo sessions for the group and sought to garner them a record deal. The band continued to build their fanbase with performances across Ireland, the most famous of which were a series of weekend afternoon shows at Dublin's Dandelion Market in mid-1979.

In August 1979, U2 recorded demos at Windmill Lane Studios with CBS talent scout Chas de Whalley as producer, marking the first of the band's many recordings at the studio during their career. The following month, three songs from the session were released by CBS in Ireland as the EP Three. It was the group's first chart success, selling all 1,000 copies of its limited edition 12-inch vinyl almost immediately. In December 1979, the band performed in London for their first shows outside Ireland, although they were unable to gain much attention from audiences or critics. On 26 February 1980, their second single, "Another Day", was released on the CBS label, again only for the Irish market. The same day, U2 performed at the 2,000-seat National Stadium in Dublin as part of an Irish tour. Despite their gamble of booking a concert in such a large venue, the move paid off. Bill Stewart, an A&R representative for Island Records, was in attendance and offered to sign them to the label. The following month, the band signed a four-year, four-album contract with Island, which included a £50,000 advance (equivalent to £270,810 in 2023) and £50,000 in tour support.

In May 1980, U2 released "11 O'Clock Tick Tock", their first international single and their debut on Island, but it failed to chart. Martin Hannett, who produced the single, was in consideration to produce the band's debut album, Boy, but was replaced with Steve Lillywhite. From July to September 1980, U2 recorded the album at Windmill Lane Studios, drawing from their nearly 40-song repertoire at the time. Lillywhite employed an experimental approach as producer, setting up Mullen's drums in a stairwell and recording overdubs such as smashed bottles and cutlery skimmed against a spinning bicycle wheel. The band found Lillywhite very encouraging and creative; Bono called him "such a breath of fresh air", and the Edge said he "had a great way of pulling the best out of everybody". The album's lead single, "A Day Without Me", was released in August. Although it did not chart, the song was the impetus for the Edge's purchase of a delay effect unit, the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, which came to define his guitar playing style.

Released in October 1980, Boy received generally positive reviews. Paul Morley of NME called it "touching, precocious, full of archaic and modernist conviction", while Declan Lynch of Hot Press said he found it "almost impossible to react negatively to U2's music". Bono's lyrics reflected on adolescence, innocence, and the passage into adulthood, themes represented on the album cover by a closeup of an adolescent Peter Rowen, the younger brother of Bono's friend Guggi. Boy peaked at number 52 in the United Kingdom and number 63 in the United States. The album included the band's first songs to receive airplay on US radio, including the single "I Will Follow", which reached number 20 on Billboard's Top Tracks rock chart. Boy's release was followed by the Boy Tour, U2's first tour of continental Europe and the US. Reviewing the band's early live performances, critics complimented their ambition and Bono's exuberance, and found the shows to be illustrative of U2's potential despite lacking polish.